Hero
by Parker Fallon
Summary: Former ARC trooper Echo survived the explosion on the Citadel, and now is looking for a life away from the Clone War. But on Ord Signant, where he chooses to make his new life, the war comes to him when a squad of Republic Commandos travels to the world to take out a Separatist mining operation. Echo is wary, but things change rapidly, and the ARC must choose where he stands.
1. Crash land

_Well, hello readers!_

_It's Parker, and today I will begin a new story that was inspired by the spoiler that Dave Filoni gave us Star Wars fans on March 10 (My birthday, I might add). Mr. Filoni said something that made me compelled to write this tale._

"P.S. I have to give you one spoiler because I know it meant a lot to some of you. Yes, Echo is alive."

_(Read the full article here: 2014/03/10/to-fans-of-star-wars-the-clone-wars-thank-you/) _

_ Yes, I know that I need to complete _Brothers_ before writing another story, but I just had too, especially with Fives dead (spoiler!)..._

_Enjoy!_

_-Parker  
_

* * *

**Captured Separatist shuttle, atmosphere of Ord Signant, three weeks after the Citadel mission **

**T**he Seppies were finally onto him, and was not a good thing.

Echo frantically pressed buttons and pulled levers on the control panel of his stolen Sep shuttle, trying to outmaneuver the Vulture droid fighters that were trailing him. He felt a jolt as one of the kriffing droids got a hit on the wing of his ship. Unfortunately, this model shuttle was made for transporting useless ballast like diplomats or others of the like, and not for evasive maneuvers. He would have to make do with this thing.

At the time it had seemed like a good idea in taking this ship from the Citadel, after he had found out his team had abandoned him in the ruins of their ship. That had hurt slightly, but that was better than having them all die at his expense. The shuttle had a manual pilot option, it could get him offworld without attention, and it had a working hyperdrive. But what he hadn't found out until now was that it was low on fuel. He had stopped off at Ord Signant to refuel and buy supplies, then get out. But the Seps had been tracking him, and now they had caught him right when his guard was let down. The tinnies were smarter than they looked.

Echo found the steering stick of the Seppie shuttle and clutched at it with his mechanical hand, his other working at the shield controls. In desperation, Echo had decided that he would crash-land onto the planet to fake his death, then make his way into the main settlement, where he could buy a new transport to get him to...

Echo had no idea where he wanted to go right now. He just knew that he had to get free from the war.

That thought caused a tingle in his remaining hand. Freedom was a concept so foreign, but so desirable to him, and it wasn't what the Republic or even some of the Jedi meant it was; Echo meant real freedom, where he could make his own choices. He knew that that freedom was there. He just hadn't been able to grasp onto it until his supposed death at the Citadel.

But freedom wouldn't mean a thing if he couldn't get the damned shuttle to enter the airspace.

Echo watched with clenched teeth into the monitor that looked over the wings. The one that had been hit by the Vulture's fire was streaming a long black tail of smoke.

He growled, pounding the control panel. He needed to get his deflector shields up, or he'd either burn to charred bits in the atmosphere, or get shot out of the sky by Vultures. _Rear or forward_, he thought, squeezing the steering stick even harder.

He made a last-second decision: forward. There was more of a chance that he was going to burn that be blasted, and he needed to get down to Ord Signant alive.

Pressing a greenish button on the panel, Echo activated the forward atmospheric deflector shields, and accelerated. The ARC nearly fell out of his seat as the ship went vertically downwards, and he let out a string of curses. He usually never had a temper outburst like this; being alone for two weeks had given him a much shorter fuse than before, and anything could light it.

The shields worked. _That's one matter off it_, he thought, smirking ruefully. _Now I just need to evade these Vultures._

Echo was now relying purely on instinct and luck. The former he knew he could trust. The latter, he felt, was running thin.

Echo couldn't do a thing more to help him crash-land any more besides strap himself in and brace himself for the crash. But he was flying vertical. How was he supposed to do that?

Then, the obviously dangerous suggestion hit him, and he nearly laughed out loud. This plan was even more dangerous than crashing. He would have to jump out of the viewport and hope to not die. But for that, he would need to get closer to the ground...

It was the best option. Otherwise he'd die right here.

Echo pulled on a breath mask from the compartment under the panel and loaded his brand-new DH-17 pistol with ammo, then slid it into his belt. He closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and unbelted himself from the seat.

Echo crashed down onto the control panel, sending sparks flying everywhere. Then, he smashed through the transparisteel viewport of the shuttle, and flew into the open air.

* * *

Echo had taken high altitude drop training on Kamino, jumping off of a board into a nearly-bottomless pit. But this was real, with the wind blasting into his face, pushing him off course, the sun getting into his eyes...

Echo absolutely hated it.

The ARC pressed his arms to his sides and tried to dive vertically until he got to about ten feet to the ground. But that would take lots of calculation, and he was rushing towards the ground at a hundred miles per hour. He resisted the urge to close his eyes. Do that, and he jut might hit the ground and splatter. Freedom wouldn't mean a damned thing then.

Before he could even realize it, Echo was approaching the ground fast. He let out a cry and jerked to his side, his left shoulder to the ground. _What's that Mando word? _Shab_? _Shab_. Oh _Shab_!_

He smacked into the rocky soil of Ord Signant's landscape. A spike of pain surged down his arm, and he hissed, panting. He needed to warm up. The atmosphere had chilled him badly. He almost, _almost_ wanted to have burned up.

* * *

_So, tell me how you like it! A review would help, a lot, and if you want to, leave constructive criticism! I always appreciate people telling me what I can do better. _

Oya,

_-Parker _


	2. Mando'ad

**Ord Signant Spaceport City Apartment Complex A-3, two days later**

Ord Signant Spaceport City was a rough, out of the way place with few notable features besides an agrocite mining facility. Agrocite was a rare mineral that was found on only three worlds in the entire galaxy, and had some importance to the War that Echo didn't care about. As long as the agrocite wasn't going to the Republic or the Seppies, Echo didn't care about it. All he cared about right now was settling his new home, then getting a good transport.

And he wanted to learn _Mando'a_. He wanted to go to Mandalore.

Echo stared out the thick transparisteel glass of his apartment, polishing the new coat of blue-and-black Mandalorian armor, _beskar'gam_ that he had bought from a small armor-and-weapons on the outskirts of Spaceport City along with a Merr-Sonn DD6-blaster pistol and a small pack of flash-bangs. He had paid well to make sure no record of his buying the weapons and armor would be on record, then bought two cans of paint, dark blue and black that he had used to paint his new suit of Mandalorian armor, very similar to his ARC suit which was now stashed away in a small chest under his couch, covered by a tarp. He had kept his _kama_, though. It went well with his _beskar_.

Echo finished polishing the armor and began to fit it on himself, attaching each plate onto his black bodysuit. It felt much heavier than the white plastoid plates of his Republic-issue armor, and Echo thought it was probably because of the fact that it was made of real Mandalorian iron.

He finished quickly, then strapped the leather belt-spat to his waist. He looked around for his... what did the Mandalorians call it? _Buy'ce? _Yes, _buy'ce_, his helmet.

He picked it up from the low wooden table he had set it on and placed it on his head.

Bright lights, flashing colors, and whirring sounds greeted him as soon as he rested it on his head, and he let out a surprised hiss. Echo had figured that the new armor would be somewhat different than his ARC trooper kit, but this was so much more...

Sophisticated? Echo supposed that was the right word for it, but it would take some getting used to. A lot of getting used to. Besides the slightly familiar features of the 360 degree sight, the zoom in/out controls and comlink, the rest of the helmet and especially the HUD, the Heads Up Display, was foreign to him, but Echo was determined to get used to it.

He fumbled around the small living room he was in, knocking his head on the ceiling multiple times as he looked for his datapad. After a few moments of searching, he found it resting on the same table he found his helmet on.

Shab_, I need to get my memory straightened out. _

Since the explosion at the Citadel, Echo had been having what the med droids would call _short term memory loss._ He could remember past details perfectly fine, such as the Rishi Moon Incident or the Third Battle of Kamino, but he was hard pressed recalling things he had done in the past few minutes, such as setting down his 'pad or helmet. It was frustrating.

And the fact that he had lost his left hand in the explosion from a piece of shrapnel. That was annoying too, even though he had gotten himself a replacement.

Echo pulled up a Galactic Institute of Anthropology HoloNet page and began to read up on _Mando'a_, the traditional langauge of Mandalore. As soon as he tapped on the 'Begin HN Tutorial_' _icon, though, he was surprised by a hologram of some sort of humanoid droid popping up on the holoprojector.

"Hello, new language learner! I am Tutor droid RT-003293783, your teacher for learning the language of _Mando'a_ within twenty rotations! Please, access the 'Begin Learning icon on your screen."

Echo rolled his eyes, sighing. He had seen these kinds of programs before, and he had even used a flash-learning style to teach himself Hutsse for a mission to Nal Hutta. But they were time consuming and boring. Echo sighed and clicked the icon.

After at least three hours of hearing RT-003293783 drone on and on about adjectives and nouns and intensive and reflexive something-or-others, Echo was done with his course on _Mando'a_ for the next six days. Each course was thirty minutes, and three hours on the 'pad equaled six days. He calculated that if he could do three hours each day, he'd have it done somewhere around four days from now. But at least he could hold a decent, albeit short, conversation with someone else speaking _Mando'a_.

"_Shabla beskar'ad_," Echo grumbled, shutting down his datapad. "_An sheb, nayc mirshe_."

Well, Echo could insult the droid, now, and the thing could only be proud of him for being able to do so.

His stomach rumbled, and Echo's fingers went into the leather pouches on his belt and he fished out some credit chips. There was a diner on the edge of the city called the Outskirt's Inn that he wanted to check out. He had smelled the greasy but delicious food coming from the open entrance, and his taste buds were practically dying to taste whatever food was there.

Standing, Echo pulled on the _buy'ce_ he had taken off sometime during the _Mando'a_ course and slipped it on, adjusting to the HUD. He accessed a map of the city and routed it to his helmet. He stood up, slipped his DD6 into his belt, and left the apartment.

Echo walked conspicuously through the city, trying to be less noticeable. On Coruscant, a Mandalorian was a bit more commonplace, but here in the middle of nowhere it stood out like a bantha in a starship. Echo ignored the gasps and whispered grumbling as he pushed through the throng of people towards the outer edges of Spaceport City. Mandalorians had a reputation for being knuckle-dragging barbarians with no code of honor, and only cared for credits, and putting on the armor was an invitation to harassment. Of course, Echo thought, no one would dare to walk up to a _Mando'ad_, a Mandalorian, and tell him he was a savage. But behind their back, they were open to all kinds of talk.

The Outskirts Inn was basically the same as any of the other bland gray stone buildings in Spaceport City, except that it was longer and had a flashing green sign hanging above the entrance. It seemed respectable enough compared to the other bars he had seen as he had walked through the city, so he ducked inside.

It _was_ respectable. More so than Echo had expected. There were some Twi'lek and Togruta singers and dancers, but that was the closest it got to sleazy. It reminded Echo slightly of the Coruscant Security Force diner the Kragget or 79, a cantina that had opened for clones stationed on Coruscant just before the Citadel mission. He had been there once, with Fives and Commander Cody.

Echo pushed past a drunken Sinateen and a Weequay and slid into a seat on the counter, causing the human sitting next to him to get up and move. Under his helmet, he smirked. This _Mando_ thing was going to get him a lot of personal space, unless someone wasn't afraid of Mandalorians.

A middle-aged grizzled man with graying hair limped up to Echo from behind the counter.

"Whadya want to order?" he asked gruffly, squinting. "We got some Mandalorian-style fish and ale..."

"Nerf stake, _ner'vod_," Echo replied, placing to untraceable cred chips in front of the tavernkeep. "Small sized, well done."

The man nodded and set a pint of brown Correlian ale in a flagon in front of him. Echo took off his helmet to begin sipping his drink. It was good. Really good. Echo decided that he would be a regular here. In fact, he decided that he would stay in Spaceport City a while. Until he got a transport to Mandalore.

Then he'd be a real _Mando'ad_.


End file.
